We all know that a person’s childhood helps shape a person into the adult they become, and Rowan Baxter is no different. We’ve covered the Hannah Clarke murder a lot for the Spartan Initiative aspect of Project Fangirl due to our research into domestic violence. However, this time, we wanted to go into the true crime aspect of what happened in a sense.
According to Hannah Clarke’s mother, Sue Clarke, Rowan allegedly had a “terrible childhood”, or at least, this is what Baxter told her daughter. However, we learned very quickly through some of his family that he was raised to hate women.
According to the inquest into the Clarke-Baxter deaths, Rowan Baxter had a childhood filled with upheaval. His father was charged and imprisoned for sexual assault. Could this have contributed to how he treated Hannah and his kids? Absolutely. This may explain why his relationship with Hannah became overly toxic; he demanded daily sex from her. When she stood up for herself and said “no,” he would punish her and the kids. The inquest also revealed that he would go days without talking to his wife.
Not to mention, one of his cousins, who has spoken out, Alana Hampson, said after the murders that Rowan Baxter was “an angry child” during his childhood, where he also showed immense cruelty. This would explain why he found being overly rough with his children “fun.” He also felt the world was against him, especially when people were better at something than he was and according to Nikki Brooks, Hannah’s best friend, he was constantly competing with everyone, even his own small children.
What would cause Rowan to be competitive with everyone is unclear. However, what we do know is that previous generations of Baxter men were misogynists. According to another cousin, Sandra Taylor, it was generational, and Rowan was actively cheating on his wife with other women. However, it wasn’t okay for her to do the same thing. In one of two interviews, she mentioned that Rowan didn’t even trying to hide it.
Sandra even said that she was terrified of Rowan, especially after Hannah had left him as she had reached out to support Hannah. She added that Hannah was aware that she wasn’t the only woman.
Going back to Alana, she said that another cousin lost a baby. Rowan was responsible for driving the car with the coffin, and he did doughnuts and there was a lot of violence in their childhood. The murders of Hannah and her children have left the family in New Zealand shocked. Rowan’s sister-in-law said no one could comment on what happened.
Also, Rowan’s aunt, Dorothy Ann Baxter, who hadn’t seen her nephew since he arrived in Australia, called him “a good boy who lost the plot.”
With a family like Rowan’s, where there is a lot of violence, it’s normal for someone to defend a perpetrator. It’s a regular thing for them. However, people like Sandra and Alana can see through the fog and call out the truth. If there are multiple people calling someone like Rowan out, then you have to know there is something wrong.
